Throughout our lives we experience many changes that require us to make transitions. As nurses, we will be key players in assisting our patients to have successful transitions especially within the health and illness experience. The Theory of Transitions was developed by Meleis, Sawyer, Im, Messias, and Schumacher (2010) to explain the human experience of various life transitions including situational, developmental, health and illness related, or even organizational transitions. All of these transitions are probable and complex; a client may experience single or multiple transitions that may overlap or occur simultaneously (Smith & Liehr, 2014). Additional major concepts explored in the Transitions Theory are patterns and conditions of transitions, properties of transition experiences, process and outcome indicators, and nursing therapeutics (Smith & Liehr, 2014).
Transition conditions identify how an individual or community experience transition and the impact those factors have on moving forward toward a healthy change (Smith & Liehr, 2014). The properties of transition are awareness, self-involvement, individual changes and differences, the time span over which the transition occurs, and important life …show more content…
These include a theory on Caucasian cancer patients’ pain experience and Asian immigrant women’s menopausal symptom experience in the United States (Smith & Liehr, 2014). The development of more situation specific theories derived from this Transitions Theory will reduce its distance from the empirical world (Alligood & Marriner-Tomey, 2014). Other researchers have tested the empirical precision of Transition Theory through their studies (Smith & Liehr, 2014). One such example would include Davies’ study on the transition to nursing home entry (Davies, 2005). In turn, these studies help provide empirical evidence for this middle range